The invention relates in general to communication systems and in particular to wireless communication systems that can communicate audio, video and data signals.
The field of wireless telecommunications has grown rapidly in recent years, and the demand for wireless telecommunication services and equipment continues to grow. This notable growth is due, in part, to the proliferation of new communication standards and the development of new hardware technologies. For example, the successful adoption of cellular telecommunication standards has promoted the growth of the cellular telephone industry and driven the development of smaller and more power efficient cellular telephones that incorporate new hardware technologies that provide for greater conversion rates between the analog and digital domain, and greater digital signal processing power.
Although the new these new standards and hardware technologies have provided a slew of new devices that often work exceptionally well, these devices are generally dedicated to a specific application and communication protocol. Usually, support for a new application or standard requires replacement of hardware. In the case of infrastructure devices such as base stations, especially in the case of the large infrastructure networks operated by leading service providers, the cost of hardware replacement to support a new application or standard is extremely high. The high cost significantly reduces the rate at which new communications technologies and their benefits are introduced into the marketplace.
To address this issue, multi-modal devices have been created wherein a single hardware device that can be located at a base station may support more than one communications standard. These devices, however, require that the standard to be supported be pre-selected, typically at the time of installation or reinstallation. Once the standard is selected, the device will support the selected standard, until a reinstallation occurs and the device is reconfigured. Although valuable, such multi-modal devices do not fulfill the need for flexibility in wireless communications infrastructure. For example, current base stations provide static processing resources and processing capability dedicated to each standard and application. Thus, it is these systems do not provide much support in an environment with changing user demands.
The proliferation of protocols and devices capable of communicating using only one or two standards has also created interoperability problems. Many pairs of devices cannot communicate effectively because of their use of different standards and of different portions of the radio frequency spectrum. The interoperability problem appears as though it will continue to grow, as advances in communications technologies lead to new standards with sufficient advantages to gain wide use despite the incompatibility of devices that use them with older devices.
Accordingly, there is a need in the art for communications devices that are readily modified, thereby providing telecommunications service providers with a facile method for deploying support for new standards, and capable of supporting multiple communications standards simultaneously, thereby improving interoperability and reducing the cost of deploying new standards that coexist with existing standards.
Further, there is a substantial need for wireless communication systems and devices capable of exchanging information via multiple communications standards simultaneously in order to act as a translator or patch between non-interoperable communications devices.
Thus it is one object of the invention to provide communication systems, including processing platforms, base stations, routers and patches, that more easily and completely service multiple air standards.
It is a further object of the invention to provide systems and methods to provide wireless communication infrastructure that is more cost efficient to upgrade and deploy.
Still other objects of the invention remain, and these objects will, in part, be set forth below and, in part, be obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art.
The systems and methods described herein provide wireless communications devices, including infrastructure such as base stations, patches and routers, for supporting wireless communications. The invention, in one aspect, consists of a collection of one or more processing elements that together carry out the functions necessary to exchange information over a plurality of wireless communications links. The systems and methods described herein combine two techniques: the use of multiple flexible processing elements, and a design in which each of the elements can carry out any part of the processing performed by the device, including without limitation the physical, MAC, link, network, transport, and presentation layer processing. Unlike previous communications devices, the systems and methods of the invention can easily and quickly change the communications standards supported, can support multiple communications standards at the same time, and can scale in a cost effective manner to support large numbers of communications channels simultaneously.
The systems and methods described herein shall be collectively referred to as a Multi-Layer Processing System, MLPS 12 for short, herein.
More specifically, the invention includes systems for implementing a communications process for communicating via a plurality of wireless communication protocols, comprising a cluster having two or more processing elements with a processor having a memory management unit capable of supporting an operating system that separates application-level and system-level address spaces. The processing units may be connected by a data network, such as an ethernet network, for supporting data communication among the processing elements. Application programs, which shall be understood as programs executing within the application-level space of the processing elements, collectively perform the signal processing of IF signals that are part of the physical layers of the wireless communication protocols.
The two or more processing elements may be arranged as a cluster and in one embodiment are selected from the group consisting of workstations, and workstation motherboards. Typically, the processing elements include a processor or CPU, memory, and I/O interface. The cluster may comprise locally arranged processing elements or processing element that are disposed at remote locations relative to each other.
The systems may further include programs for performing one or more of the physical, MAC, link, network, transport, or presentation layer processing functions for communicating via a wireless communication protocol. The processing of signals preferably occurs in real time, such that programs executing within application-level space for processing IF signals, process IF signals for transmission within a latency period corresponding to an associated wireless communication protocol.
The systems and methods described herein leverage the flexibility of the cluster architecture to allow the wireless communication systems described herein to support different wireless protocols or network standards, and to change the amount of support given to any particular standard, or to change the actual standards supported. To this end, the systems described herein may include a configuration module for selectively activating one of the application-level programs for processing signals according to a selected wireless communication protocol. The configuration module may include a process for removing support for a wireless communication protocol by sending a message to the executing application-level programs performing processing functions in support of the specified protocol. Such a message would typically include instructing for changing internal configuration into a configuration in which these functions are not carried out. The configuration module may also include a process for increasing the processing capacity dedicated to support a selected wireless communication protocol, wherein the configuration module causes additional processing elements to support the specified protocol to begin performing such processing. Alternatively, the configuration module may include a process for decreasing the processing capacity dedicated to support a selected wireless communication protocol, wherein the process causes at least some of the processing elements to cease supporting the specified protocol.
In other embodiments, the invention provides systems for implementing a communications process for communicating via a plurality of wireless communication protocols. These systems can include a cluster having two or more processing elements, each having a plurality of processors each containing a memory management unit capable of supporting an operating system that separates application-level and system-level address spaces. A data network may also be included for supporting data communication among the processing elements. In this embodiment, the interface for the data network may be attached to an I/O bus of each element. For processing, the systems may include programs executing in the respective application-level space of the two or more processing elements to collectively perform the signal processing of IF signals required for the physical layer of the wireless communication protocols.
In still other embodiments, the invention provides systems for supporting multiple air standards. These systems include a plurality of cellular switches each capable of carrying data associated with a call. The systems also include a central processing system coupled to the plurality of cellular switches and having a plurality of software processing mechanisms each capable of exchanging data with a respective one of the cellular switches. The central processing system processes the exchanged data for modulating and demodulating the data according to an air standard associated with the respective one of the cellular switches, to thereby provide to data suitable for being carried on a transmission frequency associated with the air standard.
In another aspect, the invention provides methods for wireless communication, including methods for allowing an air carrier to select an air standard for transmitting data on a computer network or data network over a wireless network. These methods may include the following operations allowing the air carrier to transmit data to a signal processing station, at the signal processing station identifying an air standard associated with the data or computer network of the air carrier, directing the signal processing system to process the data according to the selected air standard, and presenting modulated data to a wireless network for transmission over the wireless network to a wireless user.
In certain operations, the invention includes methods for a base station to process a given transmission in accordance with an air standard appropriate for that transmission. These methods may include the operations of having a mobile switch station attach a tag to information sent to the base station requesting a transmission of data, which tag identifies the air standard appropriate for that transmission, providing a process in the base station that reads the tag and forwards the transmission request to the process in the base station corresponding to that tag, which correspondence is stored in the base station, and having the process perform the signal processing in accordance with the specified air standard such that the data is formatted appropriately for transmission via that air standard. Optionally, the methods may include the operations of having the mobile switch transmit the data on a connection to an independent base station, directing an application in the base station that retrieves the data from that connection to attach a tag identifying the base station corresponding to the connection, and allowing the base station to process the transmission as if the tag had been attached by the mobile switch.
In still a further embodiment, the methods described herein provide for real-time communication between devices of different air standards. These methods may include the operations of having a system retransmit as a patch device, retransmitting any information received through one wireless communication protocol, detecting a party communicating via one of the protocols having reserved the channel for transmission, and executing the mechanisms appropriate to reserve the transmission channel on remaining configured protocols, and detecting the channel reservation acquired by the party has been released, and releasing the reservation acquired on the remaining configured protocols.
Employing the methods and systems referenced above, the invention may also provide real-time communication systems functioning as a router between two or more wireless networks. Such routers may employ a local-area data network, such as any of the known local data networks including those selected from the group consisting of IEEE802.11 and Bluetooth.